“Through machine learning and artificial intelligence, organizations can use big data to predict our next actions – sometimes even better than we can predict them ourselves. The implications of big data are enormous—enabling us to view suggested products while on a retailer’s Web site, receive recommendations to connect with people who we might know on social-media sites, and benefit from smart IoT devices that gather data from us and those who are similar to us, then act accordingly. Organizations in the healthcare and financial arenas use big-data systems to spot potential adverse events, while also pinpointing scenarios that can bring increased profits and positive outcomes.”

“To move from your research findings to product changes, you should set yourself two main goals. First, to effectively communicate your findings to help your audience process them and focus on next steps. Secondly, to follow through by proactively working with stakeholders to decide which issues will be addressed and by whom, injecting yourself into the design process whenever possible. This follow-through is critical to your success. Let’s look at an end-to-end process for embracing these two main goals.”

“In our personal lives, words can send our hearts leaping with joy. Words can clarify a serious misunderstanding. Lyrics to favorite songs are treasured; phrases from movies are quoted; political speeches are critiqued. Words have meaning and power and are remembered long after they are uttered. In our world of UX, words can have more than one meaning and often have been borrowed from other professions. This complexity makes the selection of words to describe our work challenging. In practicing UX work, I have often made word choices to save face and placate business partners.”

“In this paper, we report on a use case study involving 70 participants. They first took part in user/laboratory tests and then were asked to evaluate their experience with the two systems (perceived UX) by filling out an AttrakDiff scale and a UX needs fulfillment questionnaire. We conducted post-test interviews to better understand participants’ experiences. We analyzed how the participants’ perceived UX depends on quantitative (e.g., task completion time, task sequence, level of familiarity with the system) and qualitative aspects (think aloud, debriefing interviews) within the laboratory context.”

“To move from your research findings to product changes, you should set yourself two main goals. First, to effectively communicate your findings to help your audience process them and focus on next steps. Secondly, to follow through by proactively working with stakeholders to decide which issues will be addressed and by whom, injecting yourself into the design process whenever possible. This follow-through is critical to your success.”

“First of all we have to say, that UX design is still a growing area, and in fact, it needs much more years that UX will be seen as a common social skill. UX Designer can work in there job for the next years. Easy use cases will be done by innovation manager or product manager on their own. For complex solutions, UX designer are a must have, also for the next 10 to 15 years. But there will be a focus on different areas which will increase! This are the six new focus areas for UX designers.”

“Designing a flow is a lot like writing a story — an interactive story. And to tell a compelling story, it helps to have a writer in the room. In product design, a writer becomes the narrator of your story, guiding the main character (your user) from scene to scene, screen by screen. Whether you call yourself a writer or a designer, you’ll probably be able to spot a lot of similarities between our two disciplines.”

“Machine learning is going to radically change product design. But what is the future of machine learning? Is it the singularity, flying cars, voiceless commands, or an Alexa that can actually understand you? Before we can even get to that part–the grand futurism part – I want to offer a provocation: Machine learning won’t reach its potential–and may actually cause harm – if it doesn’t develop in tandem with user experience design.”

“My introduction to the role of UX in libraries began during my graduate assistantship at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where I worked in the UX department of the university library. When I began, I had plenty of questions: What was special about libraries? How do I apply UX methods to them? What do librarians know about UX? At the core of librarianship is public service; as non-profit educational institutions, the primary goal of libraries is to improve people’s lives. As a UX designer, I find working in libraries unique, challenging, and rewarding in its dedication to user advocacy.”

“Agile and UX Design are not just ways of creating software, but also, cultural mores—the customs and conventions of work life. And, as these methods converge and mature together, they are establishing new ways of working.”

“Over the last 5 years, it has been my privilege to coach and mentor UX & UI designers in over 40 countries, and at hundreds of the top brands and design consultancies through my workshops and tutorials on UI Animation. After over fifteen years studying motion in user interfaces, I have come to the conclusion that there are 12 specific opportunities to support usability in your UX projects using motion. I call these opportunities ‘The 12 Principles of UX in Motion,’ and they can be stacked and combined synergistically in a myriad of innovative ways.”

“Design has a huge influence on how people behave and live their lives. In how we as designers aim to answer the question of how to live ‘a good life’ the act of design itself can be seen as ethical. That’s why it’s important to know about ethics and learn to incorporate it in your design work. And for that, you’re in the right place. (…) In March 2017 Jet Gispen graduated on the research for and development of this ethical toolkit for designers. Struck by the lack of ethical knowledge of most designers and design students, she set out to find a way to improve that. By means of various case studies performed at the Delft University of Technology, Jet researched ways for designers to incorporate ethics into their design process. The result of this research was this template-based toolkit.”

“Research papers from the AAAI User Experience of Machine Learning Symposium ~ Consumer-facing predictive systems paint a seductive picture: espresso machines that start brewing just as you think it’s a good time for coffee; office lights that dim when it’s sunny and office workers don’t need them; just in time diaper delivery. The value proposition is of a better user experience, but how will that experience actually be delivered when the systems involved regularly behave in unpredictable, often inscrutable, ways? Past machine learning systems in predictive maintenance and finance were designed by and for specialists, while recommender systems suggested, but rarely acted autonomously. Semi-autonomous machine learning-driven predictive systems are now in consumer-facing domains from smart homes to self-driving vehicles. Such systems aim to do everything from keeping plants healthy and homes safe to “nudging” people to change their behavior. However, despite all the promise of a better user experience there’s been little formal discussion about how design of such learning, adaptive, predictive systems will actually deliver. This symposium aims to bridge the worlds of user experience design, service design, HCI, HRI and AI to discuss common challenges, identify key constituencies, and compare approaches to designing such systems.”

Models are great for analysis and explanation. Less for designing a future.

“For at least ten years now I have been collecting User Experience (UX) and Customer Experience (CX) Maturity Models. I keep hoping to find the perfect one to help executives understand what we do, and what good looks like. Oftentimes my conversations are about how to maximize funding for UX services. Other times the goal may be to help an executive understand just how much further we have to go before we’re really getting the benefits of engaging a UX professional.”

“As the trend of software development bends inevitably toward continuous improvement, continuous learning, and agility, so too must design practice bend and change to be most effective for the digital world. The process models UX inherited from its precursors – graphic design, industrial design, and architecture – are front-loaded and heavy, meant for outputs that are physical products and objects. But these process models collapse when it is no longer possible to figure out everything in advance, as is the case with creating complex software applications. Lean UX is a call to work iteratively, to streamline design and eliminate waste, to collaborate on cross-functional teams and, most importantly, to maintain a customer-centric perspective in our decision-making.”

“Voice interaction represents the biggest UX challenge since the birth of the smartphone, so we break down the implications and opportunities for this paradigm shift in UX design. (…) In this post, we’re going to explain some of the profound implications of the rise of voice interaction for UX design. Just as the internet began as a playground of raw new technical capability that embraced the guiding principles of intuitive, user-friendly product design over time, so too I see today’s voice-enabled tools and devices in their infancy, with limitless potential ready to be unlocked through innovative, user-centered design.”

“As the user experience professional, when the business wants to let videos wander (in other words, business leaders or other well-intentioned team members want to use the video in a way that the participant didn’t agree to), someone must serve as gatekeeper. Whenever these moments occur, our UX Cassandra role should compel us to represent not only our users’ need for great user experience, but for proper ethical handling of their participation in our experiments. Each of our new tools provide ethical challenges. We have an obligation to consider their challenges and address them as seriously as we do with our live participant studies or any of our methods.”

“Enterprise applications typically have much greater scope and are much more complex than consumer applications, so enterprise solutions are often tailored for people working in specific roles. Plus, enterprise applications are designed for a specific business domain rather than a specific task, as many consumer applications are. Administrators usually configure enterprise applications, while consumers configure their own applications. Employees routinely use enterprise applications in their work, while the use of most consumer applications is less predictable. Enterprise applications often must connect with legacy systems.”

“After the launch, I was all UX’ed out. Even the sight of a Post-It note felt exhausting. Attributing the fatigue to creative block, I planned to take a few days off to recharge. But because my version of “recharge” also means “process everything,” I also decided to write an article for creatives about how to deal with this kind of block. But when I sat down to write, something surprising happened. Despite my fatigue, the words flew off the page and my energy levels soared. I could hardly get my flood of ideas down fast enough! And that’s when I realized: This wasn’t a creative block at all. I had UX burnout.”